Bernie Ecclestone has done an amazing job for the F1 sport. Unfortunately, that work was all some time ago in an era long past. While there are still several people involved in various aspects of F1 management who have been around as long as he has, these other people have had to prove their mettle every race day. Bernie has the luxury of sitting on his throne, accountable to the FIA but unchallenged by competition. Ruling by fiat, he has long been both complacent and a force of stagnation and boring, orthodox thinking and outdated business acumen.

In an article posted at autosport.com, he finally admits one of the grave mistakes he's made recently. He's sold all the local distribution rights via any medium to the TV broadcasters. What a fool. Only someone as out of touch with the world as he is could have made such a grave mistake. Whatever you feel about Mosely, at least he has enough brain cells to make a synapse:

"Just think for one moment - on the one side you could have all the archives, all the practice times, all the four (timing screen) pages and everything that is available to the teams. A camera in every garage, a camera in every public area of the motorhomes, a camera in all areas of the paddock. They would be all there and there on site.

"On top of that, if you have some good software writers you could sit at home and join in the race. And there would be the race, and you would be in the middle of it...socking it to Lewis Hamilton for pole position. It is all there to be done.

That is exactly what I've been talking about for years. The data is generated, the bandwidth exists to distribute it from every track. I would pay much money to have those feeds available, and more if they're archived so I can access them at my convenience and review past races at my discretion. F1 is the greatest worldwide spectacle in sport, and with so many facets: the technology, the personalities, the financing and best of all the racing, there's no reason why the FIA can't be making bank from fans like me.